Blood Covenant
                 

“Not Everyone Survives the Breaking of the Glass”

T.H.N.J.T.
                                          
“You hear about it all the time. You read about it in the 
newspaper every morning and watch it happening right
in front of you on the television news at night. Some guy 
goes crazy and kills his estranged wife in a fit of rage and 
then turns the gun on himself. What was that word they 
used to describe his wife? Estranged? Oh, that means they
were separated or rather she was separated. The guy probably
never had a choice in the matter. She probably started
shacking up with some guy right there in the marital bedroom.
Then she contacted a lawyer, drew up bogus charges of abuse
and took custody of the kids, the house, the car and the GODDAMN
FAMILY DOG! OH NOW HE IS THE BAD GUY!
Sorry, I didn’t mean to lose my cool there. After all, violence
is not the answer. It is perfectly legal to take away a husband’s home,
family, personal possessions and social standing in the community.
It is perfectly legal to kill a man’s spirit and reason for living.
Heaven forbid he should ever fight back!      
                                                                    
                                                                        



Epitaph

Her body came awake with a sudden jolt! As if lightening had struck her in sleep! Eyes wide open, heart beat pounding as she looked into the blackness that floated about her room.
             The blade had cut her smooth and swiftly. She dared not move. Half in and out of dreams she dared not move. Was the thunderous sound that brought her to conscienceness gunfire? Or was it the sound of her own screams? Her eyes moved slowly to where her lover lay motionless beside her. The light from the street danced through her window and cast blatant shadows upon her walls.
           “I told you I’d get you, Bitch!” said a shaky half-familiar voice. “I told you I’d get you!”
             The sharp pain from the knife that sliced her ever so delicately at the base of her neck caused blood to trickle down upon her skin. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move; her lover lying dead just inches from where she lay.
            “For all you have done to me,” he said. “For all you have done to my family, our family, to our son! You low life worthless no good piece of shit whore! Don’t you know how much I loved you?” And he raised the knife above her. “Go to hell!”
             And the knife came down deep and solid.
             Again and again he wielded his tool. Her screams muffled only by the sounds of his blows! Over and over he stabbed her, until his clothes were saturated and his anger sated! And her screams became his screams!! Her death became his.
            And he laid himself down between them, his wife and her lover.
            And he rolled in their blood.

                                             




Dedication

This novel is dedicated to all those who have helped me in my times
of crisis. To my sister and her family and all the friends I didn’t even
realize that I had. To my Parents, without whom I would have only
been able to write these lines behind prison walls. But especially to
my son. For if it were not for him, I would not be alive.  

Book One
                         
Foundations of Stone

Chapter One

                                                       
Wind Songs

It was a beautiful bright and sunny day. The air was brisk and alive with the scent of honeysuckle and fields. The wind played among the leaves while the waters of the lake sparkled like diamonds beneath the golden sun. Mark was three years old this summer. His mom and dad had brought him home a baby sister from the doctor’s office last winter, and he loved her, very much.  He had saved all his pennies the previous summer and had given them to his mom because he knew that baby sisters were expensive. And today, with the weather being warm enough, he finally got to show Jenny the back yard. The most wonderful place in all the “outside”.
              “Come on Jenny,” he said. “let’s play!” Mark loved to run and play. He had a dog that would lick his face every time he would come near her. He had his cowboy hat, his boots, his cap gun and holster, he had it all. Jenny didn’t understand the games her brother liked to play. She was just learning to walk. But she laughed at him as he ran around on the grass and pretended to shoot the sky. 
              Laurie, Mark and Jenny’s mom looked on with much happiness, and a smile came to her face. These two were her pride and joy. She had married her childhood sweetheart when she had turned eighteen. She and her husband Rueben had both come from large families. And raising kids just came naturally to them, since they had always had younger brothers and sisters running around as they were growing up. They had a lot of love and adoration for each other, and an equal amount of love for both of their children.
              Mark and Jenny played all afternoon. Jenny still in diapers pushed her baby buggy around the yard, through the grass and dandelions that puffed up into the air and tickled her nose. “This is fun, ain’t it Jenny?” said her brother. Their mom just smiled. God had been good to her and had blessed her home with much happiness.

Book Two

Glass Houses

Chapter One

It was about 4:30 A.M. on the morning on February 22nd, 1998. It was a cold Indiana Sunday morning. Mark lay on the couch in the living room drifting in and out of sleep, waiting for Nikki to come home. She had left a while ago, sometime around dusk and was supposed to have already been home by now. He was worried about her but he knew that her mother had accompanied her to the Dance Hall. And he knew that if they had run into trouble that someone would’ve called him. He only wondered why she had gone with her mother instead of with him, since this was the first weekend that they had had to be together in a long time. Several hours ago when he and Nikki had kissed in the kitchen, he felt the passions ignite in him again as only she could do; she made him feel young again. With Nikki it was always like the first time. They had actually held hands in public while walking in the Mall that very same afternoon, which was something that they hadn’t done in what seemed like an eternity. Mark loved Nikki with his whole heart, and he hoped that their love for one another would once again be as it once was: filled with excitement and passion and closeness.
              It had been hard on Nikki and Mark knew that, with the move and the change of environment. Mark had taken her over one hundred and fifty miles away from where they had built their lives together. Away from her family, away from her friends, away from the place that had become her hometown. She had moved from town to town all of her life, and had never really known the feeling of being a member of a community and having a place in it. Here in this new and much larger town she felt that she had no one. Of course she had her husband and her children. But there was sadness in her heart, that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t comfort. The move had been hard on everyone. But it was a decision that they had made together; although it seemed to have been made somewhat in haste. But it was a decision made as husband and wife none the less. It was a move that benefited the entire family both financially and emotionally, and that was Mark’s main goal. With his new job, Mark could be the sole provider of the family income and Nikki could stay home and be with Jason their three-year-old son, while he was still young enough to stay home, before he would have to go to school. But this was not what Nikki wanted, not really. She had agreed to the move for reasons Mark was unaware of. She had told all of her friends that she did not want to move, that Mark was making her go. And that he had forced her to give up her job and all she had known because he wanted to advance his career. Mark didn’t know this side of his wife. He didn’t know the kind of person she truly was. How badly she would belittle his abilities behind his back. She then had cried and begged for a job after just two weeks of being in their new home. She said that she had had to work all of her life, that she needed the interaction and the feeling of self-reliance. Mark loved her, so he conceded. And now she had found new friends among her co-workers, most specifically with a young boy with the same first name as their son.
             It was warm in the room with the Television turned down low. The flashing and changing lights from the set keeping the otherwise total darkness at bay. Jason was asleep in the master bedroom, and Kayla, Nikki’s thirteen-year-old daughter from a previous marriage and Mark’s stepdaughter, was asleep in her room just across the hall. There was little comfort however from the icy rain that beat down upon the windows outside
             Mark knew that Nikki would be returning soon. After all, she had taken her mother with her. What kind of trouble could she possibly get into? But he was worried just the same. Nikki had been sober now for over four years. She had proven to Mark that she wasn’t an alcoholic. But since last weekend when she had gone out with the gang from work, and had come in very obviously drunk, he couldn’t help but have doubts as to what she was doing tonight.
             The lights from the car flickered and cast reflections upon the walls and ceiling of the living room. And the sounds from the engine could be heard as the car pulled into the driveway. A single door slam and the sound of a key turning in the door lock preceded his mother-in-law entering through the kitchen door.
             Mary, Nikki’s mother immediately walked through the living room and down the hall only glancing at Mark lying on the sofa briefly and went into Kayla’s room. “Kayla. Kayla.” she said. “Wake up. Your mother’s outside in the car and she wants you to go with her.” Kayla woke up and quickly dressed and stumbled half asleep across the living room, looking at Mark questionably. She walked into the kitchen and out the door to where her mother was waiting in the car. Mark who was half asleep himself and unknowing of what was happening, sat upright on the sofa and asked, “What’s going on?” Mary didn’t know how to answer. Just then Kayla returned to the kitchen and grabbed three or four cold beers from out of the refrigerator and went back outside to the car. Mary stood there in the kitchen changing the balance of her weight from one leg to the other in kind of a nervous stance. “I’ll tell you in a minute”, she said.
             Mark stretched and yawned and tried to come to full conscienceness, he was not completely alert to the events he was seeing, even though inside he was shaking. “Where’s Nikki?” he asked Mary. “She’s outside in the car”, she said. “She’s drunk.” Mark quickly came to his feet, the blanket he had had wrapped around him fell to the floor. He grabbed his jeans that were lying in a heap on the carpet and slipped them on. With no shoes and shirt unbuttoned hanging loosely out of his pants, he ran out the door, across the icy cold concrete of the car-port floor. He grabbed the door handle of the car and tried to open it but she had locked it. “Stop Nikki! Nikki stop!” he yelled. Nikki didn’t say a word or even look at him. Mark hit the car hood with his fist as she put the car in reverse. He chased her down the driveway, into the street as she sped down the road and out of sight. “Where are you going? Come back!” he screamed.
           “Goddamnit!” said Mark as he watched as his wife and stepdaughter leave. The rocks cut into the bottoms of his feet as he stood there in the road. “What in the hell is going on!” he screamed. “Goddamn, what the hell is going on now?”  The cold came to him then. His breath turning to mist as he spoke. He turned and went back into the house and stood there looking at his mother-in-law. “What the hell is wrong!?” he said. “Would you please tell me what is happening?” Mary was glassy eyed. He could tell she had been drinking, too. She had atleast had one drink tonight. “Sit down” she said. “Sit down and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
           “I don’t want to sit down, just tell me, right now what’s going on with Nikki!” said Mark. “What has happened? Where is she going?”
           “I’ll tell you when you sit down son.” Mary said. “Now come over here, I don’t want to tell you this while you’re standing up.” Mark walked over to where Mary was sitting, and he sat down beside her. His heart was pounding. He knew what she was going to say, but he had to hear it anyway. The color drained from his face, as he heard her words. She wanted to hold him and make it all go away. Mark was like a son to her. More of a son than she had ever known. And she knew that what she had to say was going to destroy his world.
            Jason had awakened, crying and had stumbled down the hall, hanging half on and half off the couch, his toes tangled up in the blanket that he had brought with him from the bedroom. He cuddled his granny and hugged her tightly.
            “She’s running around on you.” she said looking into the vacant eyes of her son-in-law. “She’s lost her mind! I don’t have any respect for her anymore.” she said. “She’s running around on you Mark. My own daughter and I can’t stand her anymore!” And she clasped her hands together and got up from the sofa and walked around the room. “I’m telling you the truth, son.” Mary said to the man who sat so quiet now, barely breathing. “I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this!”
            “Who was she with?” Mark asked. “Jason.” She replied.
              It wasn’t the words she spoke or the truth that hit him all at once. He was in a state of shock, he barely even heard her as it was. It was the rush of visions from over the course of the last six and a half years that flooded his mind in an instant. Everything hit him at one time. The yelling, the tantrums, the screaming for no apparent reason whatsoever. It was the tenderness, the birth of their son, the passion in their lovemaking; it was his life, their life together that hit him square in the face and knocked him cold. Time ceased to exist. His life was over. What was he going to do now? What would he do? What could he do? It was as if Mark was no longer in control of himself and his body simply reacted to the situation at hand. Without a word he got up off of the couch, went into the kitchen, grabbed some garbage bags from out of the counter drawers and walked down the hallway into his bedroom.
             “What are you going to do son?” asked Mary. “I’m getting the Hell out of here!” Mark exclaimed. “And I’m packing up all my shit!” Mary sat in the living room and held the baby. He didn’t understand what Daddy was doing and he cried. Mary was crying too.
                Mark looked up at the shelf in the closet. He knew his gun was there, wrapped in a sock lying in his desk drawer that he hadn’t had time as of yet to reconstruct. He reached up and retrieved the .25caliber semi automatic handgun and loaded it. He walked back down the hall and into the kitchen and placed the gun on the table. “Watch for her to pull up into the driveway.” He told Mary. “Tell me if you see her.” And then he bolted the door, and walked back down the hall. “If she shows up with that boy, I’ll kill them both!” he said.
              What bothered Mark the most was that he didn’t know if he would do it or not. If Nikki were here she would take custody of his son; no father in the world would be able to get custody away from the mother. And no other man was gonna raise his child! He knew a lot about her past and the boy. Atleast that’s what Nikki had called him that last time they had had a conversation about him. “I don’t want to wear too tight of clothes to work.” She said. “It might make that little boy’s dick hard!” Would he shoot her to keep her from taking his son? Should he call the police? Would they simply ask him to leave his house and his kids and allow her to have it all because she was a woman? He was more afraid that he wouldn’t shoot her to save his son. His life with her, or his son’s life without him, what would he choose? Choices had already been made. He only prayed that she would not return until after he and his son were gone.
             It was now 4:42 A.M.

Chapter Two
The Long Night

In a long black leather trench coat, motorcycle boots, and with hair down past his shoulders Mark stood in the crowd watching the show. He was a rough, good-looking young man in his early twenties. He could have had his choice of any woman there at the gathering, but he didn’t know it He hadn’t really come to see the band play tonight anyway. He was here to see her. The year was 1991. It was the night of All Hallows Eve.